Perhaps, every person who is interested in news from the world of mobile technologies is simply obliged to know that in these seconds the international exhibition of consumer electronics, better known by the abbreviation CES, is taking place in distant Las Vegas. The number of new products presented is downright off scale, but in general they can be divided into two categories. The first is products whose release date is still unknown. A good example of this is that they will acquire support for applications for the operating system. However, there are other novelties that will not only go into mass production very soon, but will also qualitatively change our lives. The latter include the new Tegra K1 chip, which houses a 192-core Kepler GPU. It seems that games for devices running Android are reaching a whole new level.
Probably, most of you immediately wondered about the reason for the change in the ideology of chip names. Representatives of Nvidia, we recall, have previously used a fairly simple scheme for increasing numbers. The two previous models were called Tegra 3 and Tegra 4, respectively, and therefore many users were waiting for a logical continuation. But no, that didn't happen, and Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang had this to say:
We used this name because of the fundamental differences from previous generations. Tegra K1 is simply incomparable to its predecessors. This is the best architecture we have ever created.
However, do not rush to roll your eyes at such a huge number. The main reason Nvidia made room for a 192-core processor is, of course, marketing. 192 sounds a lot more solid than 4, doesn't it? As for the Tegra K1 CPU, it is represented by a quad-core Cortex A15.
Another notable improvement was improved energy efficiency and an increase in the allowable amount of RAM to 8 GB. In addition, the chip boasts support for Unreal Engine 4, OpenGL 4.4 and DirectX 11, which, together with all of the above, should allow you to run games on Android smartphones and tablets at the level of top-end personal computers or game consoles of the latest generation.
The chip will be produced in two versions. The first is based on a 32-bit processor and will be part of the devices in the first half of 2014, while the second will receive a 64-bit processor of its own production. The second iteration will be released in the second half of this year.
However, if all these figures mean absolutely nothing to you, do not rush to get upset. Especially for this, representatives of Nvidia created a video, the main purpose of which is to demonstrate the capabilities of Tegra K1.
Perhaps even those who are far from the world of mobile games will be able to assess the power of the chip after watching the video.
Tegra K1 is not limited to performance on smartphones and tablets. In addition, the chip will also be able to work with Android game consoles and even cars.
Right before the start of the CES 2014 exhibition, traditionally held in Las Vegas, NVidia announced two mobile chips with the common name Tegra K1. Both processors have significant differences, but the unifying factors are more serious and the main one is the 192-core Kepler video accelerator. At the presentation, the CEO of NVidia claimed that Tegra K1 can outdo not only any mobile chip, but also the stuffing of past generation consoles. Tests that have surfaced online show that Jen-Hsun Huang was not exaggerating this time.
We already wrote that NVidia Tegra K1 has left the drawing stage, the manufacturer even has prototypes of one of the chip versions. Moreover, they were installed in reference tablets, with the help of which the Ira demo application was demonstrated live. Turns out Nvidia has even given prototypes to some big partners, Lenovo being one of them. At CES, the company's stand was adorned with a 4K monitor with an integrated computing platform - the ThinkVision 28.
The specs are more than good for using this device as a standalone "mega tablet" too: NVidia Tegra K1, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 32GB eMMC for data, multiple USB ports, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, memory card slot, camera, microphone, NFC and much, much more. Screen diagonal is 28 inches at a resolution of 3840x2160 (4K), and Android 4.3 is used as the OS.
Tom's Hardware journalists were able to access the Lenovo ThinkVision 28 bench and run a number of applications on it. The famous CPU-Z program, which migrated to Android from Windows, confirmed part of the filling, recognizing the Tegra K1 variant with Cortex-A15 cores combined into a 4-PLUS-1 system. Interestingly, the maximum frequency of the main four is listed as 2 GHz, which is slightly less than what NVidia stated at the time of the announcement of the chip. This proves that inside the bench ThinkVision 28 is not the final version, but a prototype.
Naturally, the most interesting part of the Nvidia Tegra K1 is the 192-core video accelerator, which is what makes this chip special. And the very first test, carried out with the help of 3DMark from Futuremark, showed the superiority of the new processor over the existing ones. After running standard tests in Offscreen mode at 720p resolution, the benchmark produced the following results: 22,285 points for Ice Storm Unlimited, 24,927 points for graphics performance, and 16,299 points for physics calculation. You can see a comparison with some other devices in the diagram above. Summing up, we can say that even the Tegra K1 prototype with a reduced CPU (and possibly GPU) frequency in 3DMark has no competitors.
The next benchmark in which the Tegra K1 was tested was the trusted cross-platform GFXBench. Tom's Hardware specifies that the latest version of the application was not installed on the Lenovo "monitor". In the 1080p version of the T-Rex HD, the device showed a result of 48 frames per second, which is almost twice as high as that of the nearest competitor in the face of the Apple iPhone 5s. For reference, the Snapdragon 800 was only able to achieve 23 fps. But in the Onscreen test, Tegra K1 from NVidia is in last place with 16 frames per second, the reason for this is the ultra-high screen resolution and, I would like to believe, the non-final revision of the processor.
Not too well, the new product from NVidia coped with AnTutu. She received only 33,917 points and lost to her predecessor, however, leaving Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 far behind. It is difficult to guess what caused the failure of the Tegra K1 prototype, but we can say for sure that the final copy will have different results.
Another portion of interesting information came from China. According to her, the reference tablet with Tegra K1 in the Offscreen 1080p T-Rex HD test, which is part of GFXBench, reached 60 frames per second. This is more than the above-mentioned ThinkVision 28 from Lenovo, which means that the latter, indeed, has some kind of intermediate prototype of the new chip. Moreover, NVidia Tegra K1 outperformed even a laptop with an Intel i5 and an integrated graphics card of the latest generation - HD Graphics 4400. It's a pity, but the smartphone-tablet chip still falls short of the Intel i7 with the mobile GeForce 740.
It will be interesting to compare the final NVidia Tegra K1 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805, which promised not only improved CPUs, but also a new accelerator. However, in addition to performance, proprietary tools for developers and technology support are important. And if DirectX 11 is supported by both chips (fans of Windows and Windows Phone should be happy), then Full-fledged OpenGL 4.4 can boast only the NVidia processor. True, we still have to wait for at least one of the major game creators to start developing using it.
Instead of demonstrating the Tegra 5 at CES 2014, Nvidia showed off the next generation of mobile processors called the K1, which can convince with just 192 cores of performance.
The K1's console performance makes highly detailed tablet gaming possible, something Nvidia offered to try out on a dozen 7-inch tablets equipped with the new processor. Stunning graphics could be seen in two full-fledged games at once.
The Android version of Serious Sam 3 was able to transition to a new platform and retain the free style of a first-person shooter thanks to K1 being able to beat Unreal Engine 4. Its 3D graphics abilities provided us with all the textures we could expect from a PC version. games. We were unable to detect blurry details that are commonly found in ported shooters from PC to Android.
Of course, an important addition to the incredible demo experience was Nyko's wireless controllers, which made the games not only look but feel like the PC versions. Of course, the great graphics did their job, hitting the frame rate, which sometimes sagged, but we were told that the problem was more in the memory than in the GPU.
TegraK1 with 2D-games and demos
Trine 2 is not a 3D game, it's more of a 2D (or 2.5D) puzzle game that consumes as much performance as a serious full game.
The tested Nvidia Tegra K1 tablets delivered software results similar to the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U thanks to dynamic lighting combined with active screen animation. This is exactly what Android games have been missing, making Trine 2 a very compelling showcase for the chip's new capabilities.
The demo reel living room comes to life.
The demos for the K1 chip are based on full-fledged video games with Digital Ira Faceworks processing, which allows you to recreate a photorealistic living room, even goosebumps.
The demo videos showed realistic visuals, even if they didn't drive the K1 chip with intense action like Serious Sam 3 and Trine 2.
NvidiaTegra K1 behind the glass and behind the radiator
The Nvidia K1 processor could be seen outside of the tablet, but it was covered by a sheet of glass. Along with the glass, the processor was covered with a heatsink large enough to provide the processor with the required level of cooling.
This heatsink confused many people that they saw the K1 for the first time at CES because the chip is supposed to be tiny (28nm). The heatsink enclosing the graphics chip was twice as large, making the tiny processor much less friendly to new tablets at launch.
And while the cooling system has yet to catch up with Nvidia's next-gen processors, the company's graphics solutions are in line with what Microsoft and Sony are doing with next-gen video games, but Nvidia is going to give them to tablets.
Nvidia proudly showed off a chart comparing the DirectX11-compatible Tegra K1 to the DirectX9-compatible Xbox 360 and PS3. K1 demonstrates high CPU and GPU performance while requiring less power, only 5W.
Nvidia Tegra K1 vs Xbox One and PS3.
preliminary verdict
The Tegra K1 is a big step forward for the graphics capabilities of tablets. If successful, Nvidia's chip could make sense of multi-platform gaming when it launches in 32-bit 2.3GHz and 64-bit 2.5GHz variants. After all, developers may be tempted to convert all tablets to K1 in order to create a platform no smaller than the Xbox 360 and PS3.
We concluded our recent review of the SHIELD handheld console by saying that while the Tegra 4 system-on-chip that underpins it still has excellent 3D performance, NVIDIA is already preparing the next gaming device based on the Tegra K1 SoC. Then it was still not known what it would be: either a new version of the same console, or a more familiar format - a tablet computer. And it turned out in some way both: a tablet and a separate wireless controller, which are sold and can be used separately, but are actually unthinkable without each other.
In addition to its own merits, SHIELD Tablet is of particular interest to us as the official incarnation of the Tegra K1. The first device based on K1 was the Chinese tablet Xiaomi MiPad, and there are no other options at all. Let's hurry to check what the new system is capable of.
⇡ Tegra K1: CPU
The Tegra K1 chip, like its predecessor Tegra 4, is manufactured by Taiwanese TSMC using a 28 nm process technology and is an SoC with four ARM architecture cores. In this area, NVIDIA has changed little. The Tegra K1 central processor is still designed according to a simple and, one might say, rough scheme, when all computing cores are built on the Cortex-A15 architecture.
The CPU still has 2 MB of shared L2 cache and 64 KB of L1 cache per core. LPDDR3 chips with a 64-bit interface are used as RAM.
I must say that the A15, being a more productive core compared to the widely used Cortex-A9, is also characterized by increased power consumption. There are not many A15-based microprocessors so far, the most striking example, in addition to the Tegra 4 itself and Tegra K1, is the Samsung Exynos 5 chip family. But in Exynos, simultaneously with the Cortex-A15 cores, of which there can also be up to four pieces, the Cortex-A7 cores are integrated, which are derivatives of the A8 with a specially simplified design. Thanks to such a CPU device, which is called “ARM big.LITTLE heterogeneous architecture”, the system can scale performance and the accompanying power consumption in a wide range, not only by varying the clock frequency of the cores, but also by distributing computational threads between large and small cores depending on their requirements. and priority. "Free" cores are disabled, so in terms of power consumption, everything looks pretty good.
In Tegra 4, and after it - and Tegra K1, there is an embryo of such a design in the form of the so-called shadow core - the fifth Cortex-A15 core, truncated compared to the four main cores. The “shadow” core runs with minimal OS activity and handles the most undemanding tasks (for example, receiving mail) while the device is in your pocket with the screen turned off. Otherwise, scaling is achieved solely by frequency manipulation. As a result, Tegra 4's energy efficiency, if not as bad as many used to think about NVIDIA mobile SoCs, is still inferior to the performance of competing systems both on the ARM bit.LITTLE architecture and with original design cores (Apple A7, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 ).
Despite the fact that the Tegra K1 CPU has not deviated architecturally from the foundations laid down in the Tegra 4, and is still manufactured according to the technological standard of 28 nm, NVIDIA has found other ways to raise the performance-to-power ratio. Firstly, the logic of the cores was updated from version r2p1 to r3p3, and on the way between these versions of Cortex-A15, there were changes aimed at improving energy efficiency. Secondly, Tegra K1 chips are manufactured at TSMC using the 28 HPm (High Performane Mobile) process technology, which is characterized by reduced current leakage in the chip. As a result, the K1 could theoretically provide 40% more performance for the same power consumption as the Tegra 4, or draw 55% less current for the same performance.
Power efficiency improvements also made it possible to raise the chip's frequency ceiling from 1.9 to 2.2 GHz, regardless of the number of active cores. The Cortex-A15 shadow core frequency scales up to 1 GHz. SoC manufacturers have recently been reluctant to disclose the TDP of their products (and even with discrete CPUs and GPUs, the picture is becoming more and more cloudy), but judging by the characteristics of the SHIELD Tablet and the SHIELD console, the system has indeed become more economical. A Tegra K1 tablet needs a 19.75 Wh battery, while a Tegra 4 console comes with a 28.8 Wh battery, and even at a smaller size and screen resolution. Of course, without running tests, we don't know the last term of the equation, battery life, but the SHIELD Tablet at least doesn't need active fan cooling to keep the SoC running at maximum frequency.
It is interesting that, being one of the initiators of the race for the number of cores in mobile SoCs, NVIDIA is simultaneously developing the second branch of the Tegra K1, which is a dual-core CPU of the original architecture. The two chips are absolutely compatible at the pin level and have the same GPUs, but in contrast to the licensed IP Cortex-A15, they use cores of their own design, codenamed Denver.
So far, much less is known about them than our curiosity requires. NVIDIA claims that Denver is a 64-bit core that supports the ARMv8 instruction set, but with an unusually large superscalar: up to 7 instructions executing simultaneously. There is speculation that Denver requires recoding ARMv8 instructions, similar to how Intel processors recode x86 instructions into RISC-like microinstructions. In this case, it is quite logical that the number 7 refers specifically to instructions in the Denver internal format.
By transcoding instructions from the "wide" pipeline, it is possible to achieve greater performance per watt than in a system with four or more separate "narrow" cores, by extracting additional ILP (Instruction Level Parallelism - "parallelism at the instruction level") from the executable code. It is announced that the Denver clock frequency can reach 2.5 GHz - a lot for such a "wide" processor. In any case, we have yet to wait for the commercial implementation of Tegra K1 based on Denver cores, and in SHIELD Tablet we are dealing with a regular Cortex-A15.
⇡ Tegra K1: GPU, ISP, communications
The main pathos of Tegra K1 is not at all in CPU optimization, but in a completely redesigned GPU. The GPU in Tegra 4 (also known as GeForce ULP, Ultra Low Power) is built according to the scheme that existed before the advent of the unified shader architecture, that is, it has separate ALUs for processing pixel and vertex shaders. The Tegra 4 demonstrates quite good performance in 3D, and in this area NVIDIA could also be satisfied with a clock boost.
Instead, Tegra K1 received a full-fledged GPU based on the Kepler architecture, ported from “discrete” silicon with minimal changes. At a strategic level, NVIDIA now plans to synchronize the development of discrete and integrated GPUs, moreover, new iterations of the architecture, starting with Maxwell, will be designed as integrated solutions with a priority on energy efficiency.
However, the Kepler architecture is largely shaped by the requirements for TDP and therefore fits well into the mobile SoC. From the discrete GPU, the developers took one SMX (Streaming Multiprocessor) - the largest unified architecture block, which includes 192 CUDA cores and 8 texture modules (half as many as in discrete GPUs), as well as PolyMorph Engine 2.0 geometric logic (unchanged).
Outside of the SMX are the four ROPs and the Kepler control logic, which must have been simplified due to the fact that the SoC does not need to load balance across multiple SMXs. Since the GPU frequency does not exceed 950 MHz, and even taking into account the optimization of the technical process, NVIDIA's declared thermal package of 2 W looks quite reliable. Note, however, that we are talking only about the GPU, and not about the power consumption of the SoC as a whole.
Switching from GeForce ULP to full-fledged Kepler was a huge step forward, at least in terms of performance. But beyond that, the Tegra K1 has the same set of hardware features and API support as discrete NVIDIA GPUs. Supports OpenGL 4.4, DirectX 12, as well as OpenCL 1.2 and CUDA 6.0 for "counting" tasks. Not forgotten and OpenGL ES 3.1, used by all modern mobile GPUs. In some ways, Tegra K1 is even ahead of its discrete counterparts - for example, it supports ASTC texture compression at the hardware level.
NVIDIA claims that the Tegra K1 is comparable in computing power to previous generation console GPUs. Having estimated the performance in various aspects, it is quite possible to agree with this. Tegra K1 has a clear advantage in shader calculation speed, but there is a certain disadvantage in memory bandwidth and fill rate.
Tegra K1 received a significantly upgraded ISP (Image Signal Processor). This block is responsible for photo and video processing: autofocus, exposure adjustment, HDR, and more. Compared to Tegra 4, the combined performance of the two ISPs in the Tegra K1 is tripled to 1.2 Gpx/s. The SoC provides hardware video encoding/decoding with H.264 codec at 2160p resolution at 30Hz. H.265 is also supported, but only with partial hardware acceleration. SoC allows you to separate DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 1.4b ports, which cannot output video in 4K resolution with a frame rate above 30 Hz.
For storage and connectivity with discrete devices, the Tegra K1 uses three USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, eMMC and PCI-E x4. In mobile devices, of course, all this will not be used at the same time.
⇡ SHIELD Tablet
Having finished discussing the system underlying the SHIELD Tablet, let's turn to the device itself. SoC Tegra K1 as part of the tablet can reach the maximum frequency provided by the design - 2.2 GHz. This, fortunately, does not require blowing it with a built-in fan, as is done in the SHIELD console. The amount of RAM is 2 GB.
The appearance of the tablet resembles the Tegra Note 7, which served as the reference device for Tegra 4. But since the release of the Tegra K1 is so important for NVIDIA, SHIELD Tablet is in every way a higher-class device.
The screen uses an 8-inch IPS matrix with a resolution of 1920x1200 pixels. This not quite familiar format is actually ideal for SHIELD Tablet. It is impossible to move further along the inch line: the demand for large tablets is in doubt, and most importantly, mutually contradictory requirements arise to increase the resolution and maintain a high level of performance in 3D applications. On the other hand, the 8-inch 16:10 screen is more comfortable in portrait orientation than narrow 7-inch Full HD sensors.
Accordingly, the closest analogue of the SHIELD Tablet in terms of dimensions is more like an iPad mini than a Google Nexus 7. In terms of the quality of materials, the NVIDIA tablet, of course, is not chasing Apple. The case is made entirely of plastic, but there are no complaints about backlash and docking of parts. The entire back is finished with a soft touch finish with glossy lettering of the SHIELD logo. From Tegra Note 7, the tablet inherited the stylus stored in the recess of the case. In general, the design of SHIELD Tablet embodies the already well-recognized style of NVIDIA.
Since the SHIELD Tablet is primarily a gaming device, the design of the tablet is designed to be used in landscape orientation. At the same time, wide grilles of stereo speakers line up on the sides of the screen, and all hardware buttons remain on the edge of the case facing upwards. Headphone jacks, Micro USB and Mini HDMI are concentrated in one place. For SHIELD, a magnetic stand cover is sold separately. The edge segment of the cover clings to the front panel, keeping it closed (there is a function of entering sleep when closing and exiting when opening), or to the middle of the back surface, forming a stable support.
The tablet comes in versions with Wi-Fi interface or with WiFi + LTE. The modem in the cellular version supports the Band 7 and Band 20 frequencies required to work in Russian networks.
For fast charging, it is better to use the supplied 11 W power supply (5.2 V 2.1 A)
Modification c LTE is also endowed with twice as much internal memory - 32 GB. In both cases, expansion is available with microSD cards with a capacity of up to 128 GB. Here, however, we must immediately recall that Android does not normally allow you to install applications on an external drive, and powerful games, for which everything is started, can easily take up several gigabytes of volume.
If we confine ourselves to a formal description of technical characteristics, then SHIELD Tablet is a strong example of an Android tablet, moreover, with a “native” OS interface and without design frills. Specificity is manifested only in the Wi-Fi configuration. Like the SHIELD console, the tablet has a 2x2 MIMO adapter, which means it supports two streams at 2.4 or 5 GHz. In the latter case, a peak throughput at the PHY layer of 300 Mbps is provided. The usual mobile companion for reading Facebook at McDonald's does not need such a speed - this is done purely for streaming games from a PC.
| NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Display | 8 inches, 1920x1200 (283 ppi), IPS |
| Touch screen | capacitive |
| Air gap | There is |
| Oleophobic coating | ND |
| Polarizing filter | ND |
| CPU | NVIDIA Tegra K1, 4+1 ARM Cortex-A15 cores, up to 2.2 GHz, 28HPM manufacturing process |
| Graphics controller | Kepler, 192 CUDA cores, 8 texture units, 4 ROPs |
| RAM | 2 GB LPDDR3 |
| Flash memory | 16/32 GB + up to 128 GB microSD |
| Connectors | 1 x Micro USB 3.2 (MHL) , 1 x 3.5mm headset jack, 1 x MicroSD 1 x Mini HDMI 1.4a, 1 x Micro-SIM (optional) |
| cellular | 2G/3G/4G |
| Cellular 2G | GSM/EDGE |
| Cellular 3G | HSPA+: Bands 1,2,4,5 (2100, 1900, 1700, 850 MHz) - N. America HSPA+: Bands 1,2,5,8 (2100/1900/850/900) - outside of N. America |
| Cellular 4G | LTE: Bands 2,4,5,7,17 (1900, 1700, 850, 2600, 700 MHz) - N. America LTE: Bands 1,3,7,20 (2100/1800/2600/800 MHz) - outside of S. America |
| WiFi | 802.11a/b/g/n, 2.4/5 GHz, MIMO 2x2 |
| Bluetooth | 4.0 |
| IR port | Not |
| Navigation | GPS, GLONASS |
| Sensors | Ambient light sensor, accelerometer/gyroscope |
| Main camera | 5 MP, autofocus, HDR |
| Front-camera | 5 MP, HDR |
| Nutrition | Non-removable battery, 19.75 Wh |
| The size | 221x126 mm, body thickness - 9.2 mm |
| Weight | 390 g |
| Water and dust protection | Not |
| Operating system | Google Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) |
| Estimated price | RUB 13,990 (WiFi) RUB 18,990 (LTE) |
⇡ SHIELD controller
SHIELD Tablet is the ideological successor to the SHIELD console. But the main difference, aside from the upgraded SoC and larger screen, is that the gaming device is now split into two components: a tablet and a wireless controller. The latter is bought separately at a recommended price of $59, or 3,490 rubles, which, in general, is not cheap at all. But the SHIELD controller is not easy either. Let's start with the fact that the gamepad connects to the tablet not via Bluetooth, but via Wi-Fi Direct. As a result, lower input lag and potentially better sound transmission: the gamepad has a built-in microphone and a headphone jack. In addition to the tablet, the controller works with the SHIELD console and PC, but in the latter case, only via a USB cable. Through it, a non-removable battery is charged.
In terms of the shape of the case and the location of the controls, the gamepad as a whole does not differ from the SHIELD console (minus the built-in display, of course). Ergonomics are still on top. The only mechanical flaw that you notice after you spend enough time with SHIELD is that you would like to make the analog sticks tighter, otherwise maintaining a certain angle of inclination, in addition to extreme positions, is rather difficult. For someone else, the gamepad will seem too light, but sorry - it's still a mobile device.
Unlike the gamepad on the SHIELD console, the buttons that duplicate the Android navigation elements have been made touch-sensitive, which is spectacular, but not at all convenient. And the volume buttons, for some reason, are the most physical. There is also a miniature touchpad that controls the mouse cursor along with the right analog stick.
The gamepad is perfectly integrated with SHIELD devices. "Pairing" and activation of the gamepad is performed by long pressing the button with the NVIDIA logo. Up to four controllers are connected to one host. In practice, the control of the Wi-Fi Direct gamepad is really super responsive. There is absolutely no difference in input lag compared to the SHIELD console's built-in gamepad.
⇡ Software
The SHIELD Tablet runs bare Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) with minimal additions in the form of NVIDIA gaming software. The SHIELD Hub program provides links to games in the Play Store that are at least good friends with the SHIELD hardware controller. From here, installed games for Android or broadcast from a PC are launched.
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There is a Gamepad Mapper utility - with its help, gamepad buttons can be tied to screen areas or gestures in those games that do not support hardware controllers.
From the desktop, SHIELD comes with the ability to record ShadowPlay video using the built-in H.264 encoder. The rules are exactly the same: either the process starts and stops arbitrarily, or the program always writes in the background, and you can retrieve what has been recorded within the last 20 minutes at any time. What happens on the screen can be accompanied by an image from a webcam and sound from a microphone. The video is saved in an MP4 container, support for the Twitch service is built-in.
Following the Tegra Note 7, the SHIELD Tablet comes with handwriting recognition software, as well as NVIDIA Dabbler, a drawing program with the included stylus that uses the computational capabilities of the GPU to simulate physics: spreading watercolor spots, the play of light on voluminous strokes of oil paint, and so on. Further.
⇡ Play: what and how
The SHIELD Tablet has two scenarios of use: either we play on the built-in display, or we connect an external panel via an HDMI cable. Interface Version 1.4b supports Ultra-HD (2160p) resolutions at 30Hz or 1080p at 60Hz. In this case, either the image is duplicated on the built-in screen, or it is disabled.
But what to play is a more difficult question. NVIDIA employees told us that until recently, the company resisted the use of the term "console" for their gaming devices, since NVIDIA does not concentrate games around its products, but strives to make a universal open platform that is compatible with both Android and PC.
Android itself as a gaming environment is still in the same state as last year, when the first SHIELD saw the light of day. Well, that is, on the one hand, there is a sea of casual games and time-killers, on the other hand, there is an acute lack of games with deep immersion in the process, developers are guided by the technical limitations of the hardware base. In this area, NVIDIA took it upon itself to single-handedly move the stone, and it seems that the process has finally begun. At the very least, Tegra K1 has enough computing power for the eyes in order to implement in code everything that was previously impossible.
Trine 2 on SHIELD Tablet, recorded with ShadowPlay
The release of versions of War Thunder for Android and iOS is coming soon. The beta version that was shown to us on the big screen, perhaps, really looks no worse than the best games for the previous generation of consoles.
Rivalry demo on Unreal Engine 4 in real time running on Tegra K1
The lack of large game projects on Android makes up for the broadcast of computer games. To do this, you need to connect to a desktop or laptop (which, of course, must have a GeForce graphics card and NVIDIA software) via Wi-Fi or cable Ethernet (using a USB adapter). Game on the built-in display is a dubious pleasure, SHIELD is best used as a node for connecting a TV and a wireless gamepad.
Contrary to understandable skepticism, playing this way is very comfortable. With a good channel, the picture quality is perfect (resolution up to 1080p is supported). Input delay, of course, is present, but sometimes only on the verge of distinction. And most importantly, in supported games, gamepad control is initially configured, and even prompts are displayed on the screen indicating the buttons of the controller.
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A more exotic, in fact, experimental option is to broadcast over the Internet from a remote computer, provided that it has a static IP address. Finally, the NVIDIA GRID cloud service with a small library of games has been launched in beta version, which can be used for free, subject to a more or less high-quality connection to NVIDIA servers in California. Under such conditions, it is generally surprising that the system was satisfied with a 100-megabit channel in Moscow and even allowed to play with a more or less tolerable lag. The picture, however, was very blurry due to powerful compression.
Some kind of bad aura has developed around NVIDIA. Phones with Tegra 3 chipsets heat up mercilessly and eat up the battery in a matter of hours, while for some reason it is customary to blame NVIDIA, and not the manufacturer, who failed to adapt their software to the chipset and arrange structural elements in such a way as to reduce heat or somehow keep it within the bounds of decency. The situation on tablets is generally much better. But these are iron affairs, but what about the content itself - games?
There is a special Tegra Zone application, which for some reason is rarely pre-installed on certain devices and, as for me, in vain. It contains all games optimized for Tegra gadgets, as well as various news, from which you can sometimes learn a lot of interesting things about top mobile games, what developers think and how certain projects were created. There is also a web version of the application, but only in several languages, among which there is no Russian. But it is in the program itself, although the localization and quality of translation in places (in news texts, game descriptions) is lame. Nevertheless, the program is convenient to use, it even allows you to read reviews of some games, but the fact that it is not available on all Tegra devices is a strange decision that complicates the life of gamers and forces them to search for suitable games and the application itself on Google Play manually. To date, the number of optimized toys in Tegra Zone is 67 pieces. Among them there are both simple arcade games and interesting adventure action games and top shooters.
Many users consider optimization for Tegra devices to be a marketing ploy, since in reality the games supposedly do not differ at all from those on iOS and some Android devices, and they usually come out much later. In reality, the situation is somewhat different. Yes, in Tegra Zone there are games with minimal, but, nevertheless, existing differences from the regular versions. These could be slightly improved particles, a couple of new details in the character's appearance, and a few additional graphical additions to the game, like rolling stones underfoot. In addition to them, there are games with more significant graphical differences, demonstrating the visual component of a completely different level. As for the appearance in the app stores, Tegra exclusives first of all, of course, debut on Android, and after some time they come to iOS. As you know, with other games, the situation is usually the opposite. In this case, it happens that a popular iOS game eventually appears on Android, and often ends up in the Tegra Zone, that is, available only for Tegra devices, because they carry changes and additions that are displayed only on such devices. Someone will say that in unofficial ways you can get Tegra-level graphics on devices not intended for this, however, these methods do not guarantee the full performance of games and their proper quality. For example, a game can work in this form for only a few levels, and then bugs and problems appear, from which users of Tegra devices are protected, thanks to optimization specifically for their gadgets. None of the game developers will solve the problems of unofficial installations, so fans of piracy will have to wait for fixes for who knows how long and no one knows from whom and suffer, observing artifacts and glitches.
Video review of games and Tegra 3
To be honest, until recently, I myself considered Tegra a marketing gimmick, until I directly compared several toys on different platforms and saw differences, both significant for some games and not very significant for others. But let's see what top and interesting games are currently available for Tegra devices and what they are. In those where I had the opportunity to observe graphical differences from versions for another OS, I will make notes. I would like to start with simple, but interesting and pleasant-looking toys.
Screenshots and descriptions of popular Tegra games
